14 Aug 07
The silence is deafening. I can hear the motors in Max's camera whirring and I'm standing maybe 50 yards from him. Then I notice another sound, gradually increasing from a gentle whisper to a full-on roar. A ball of sound barrels its way towards us and I can almost feel the air being sucked away, like the beginning of a tsunami, towards the oncoming behemoth. As the huge truck thunders past, its driver lets rip with his horn and my ears feel fit to burst. Then the sound fades as gradually as it began and soon silence - total, absolute silence - resumes.
We're inside the middle of a mountain. We're inside the longest road tunnel in the world. We're in Norway, with an Aston Martin V8 Vantage Roadster. It's snowing outside, and it's very late at night.
Why are we here? Blame the new type of customer attracted to Aston by the V8 Vantage. Younger than ever, with City bonuses burning large holes in their Armani suit pockets, the Vantage buyer wants something sexy, exciting and loud. Some of them take part in impromptu late-night 'tunnel runs'. With windows down and engines revving their nuts off, these are orgies of pure sonic pleasure. You can't blame them.
And you can't blame us for wanting to go one better. We've come to Laerdal, which at 15.2 miles is the world's longest road tunnel. Its proper purpose is to enable you to drive between Norway's two largest cities, Bergen and Oslo, without having to spend hours on a ferry or negotiating hazardous mountain passes. The overall route is also recognised as one of the world's great drives, through jaw-dropping scenery. Laerdal is the icing on the cake, and in a V8 Vantage Roadster promises to be amazing with the roof down and the revs climbing past 4,000, when the killjoy exhaust valves open up, liberating one of the world's greatest sounds.
